Buildings have large openings or doorways for accommodating vehicles, aircraft, watercraft and equipment which are moved into and out of the interior spaces in the buildings. Common types of conventional doors used to open and close the doorways are horizontally sliding doors and two piece center hinged doors known as bi-fold doors. An example of an overhead bi-fold door is disclosed by M. L. Schweiss in U.S. Pat. No. 6,866,080. The bi-fold doors have separate levers and mechanical latches operable to hold the doors in closed positions relative to the building structure.
F. F. Egleston et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 3,024,838 discloses a bi-fold door and keeper members mounted at the bottom of each of the columns adjacent the sides of the bi-fold door. The keepers include upright arms providing slots. Spar elements attached to lower side portions of the bi-fold door have rollers that engage the keeper arms to wedge the bi-fold door inwardly to keep the bi-fold door completely closed.
D. E. James in U.S. Pat. No. 4,026,343 discloses a bi-fold door having positive locking devices at the bottom of the door adopted to lock into floor notches to maintain the bi-fold door in a stationary upright closed position. As shown in FIG. 2, these latches mounted on the bottom of the bi-fold door have latch bolts that extend into notches in the floor below the bi-fold door. Springs bias the latch bolts into locking position into the floor notches. Triangular latch releases pivotally mounted on the bi-fold door are connected with cables. One latch release has a foot pedal which is depressed causing the latch bolts to be moved out of the floor notches thereby releasing latches and allowing the bi-fold door to be moved to an open position.
C. E. McQueen et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 4,637,446 discloses a latch member that engages a catch plate to lock a bi-fold door in an upright closed position. A spring connected to the latch member retains the latch member in locking engagement with the catch plate. A lift cable connected to the latch member extending to a door opening mechanism is used to release the latch member from the catch plate to allow the bi-fold door to swing to an open folded position.
C. P. Edward Jr. in U.S. Pat. No. 4,765,093 discloses an overhead tilt door having locking pins extended downwardly from the bottom of the door frame. When the door is closed, the pins extend into holes in the floor below the door. The locking pins when used with large doors increases the door's stability and resist forces caused by winds directed upon the large surface of the door when closed.
D. N. Keller in U.S. Pat. No. 5,343,923 discloses a latching assembly operable to hold a bi-fold door in an upright closed position. The latching assembly has an arm pivotally connected to the door frame that cooperates with a roller mounted on the adjacent door jamb. An actuation assembly driven by an electric motor operates to open and close the bi-fold door. The actuation assembly pulls a cable connected to the arm to pivot the arm into locking relationship with the roller on the door jamb to hold the bi-fold door in the upright closed position. The latching assembly operates with a single electric motor that performs the latching and unlatching operations automatically in cooperation with the opening and closing of the bi-fold door.